Here's the one-hundred fifty-fourth issue of COSS Weekly, the global commercial open source (COSS) company category newsletter, brought to you every weekend by the team at OSS Capital, creators and stewards of COSS Community and Open Core Summit.
We deliver only the most fresh 😋 news from the previous week in COSS across: Funding, Content, Jobs, Liquidity and $COSS (Public Markets).
Last week saw funding announcements from Formbricks, 40K stars for AppFlowy, major AI conversations, Hoppscotch news, and more!
Enjoy!
💰 COSS Funding
- Formbricks, the open survey suite, announced their pre-seed led by OSS Capital and Peer Richelsen. Link
- JJ --- e/acc: "Thrilled to announce our latest investment @OSSCapital --- we led the founding round of @formbricks who are transforming the experience management (surveys) space faster than ever through open source. Thank you to @peer_rich for introducing me to this awesome team." Link
📚 COSS Content
VentureBeat: "MIT's copilot system can set the stage for a new wave of AI innovation venturebeat.com/ai/mit-copilot..." Link
Yann LeCun: "Well, at least one Big Tech company is open sourcing AI models and not lying about AI existential risk businessinsider.com/andrew-ng-goog..." Link
Bill Gurley: "Why are open-source models such a threat to AI incumbents that they would mount an SBF-level political campaign to attempt to pull-up-the-ladder through regulatory capture? Check out my three part conversation with none other than ChatGPT:" Link
tobi lutke: "In 1991 Biden kicked off the encryption wars. Now it's AI. History rhymes. newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/joe-biden-ki..." Link
Andrew Ng: "Laws to ensure AI applications are safe, fair, and transparent are needed. But the White House's use of the Defense Production Act---typically reserved for war or national emergencies---distorts AI through the lens of security, for example with phrases like "companies developing any foundation model that poses a serious risk to national security." Yes, AI -- like many technologies such as electricity and encryption -- is dual use in the sense it can be used for civilian or military purposes. But conflating AI safety for civilian use cases and ..." Link
JJ --- e/acc: "We are funding open weights lobbying directly by doing our part here but please DM if you are actively lobbying and I'll get in touch: heathermeeker.com/2023/06/08/tow..." Link
JJ --- e/acc: "Just 2 years ago, @OSSCapital led the $3M founding seed of @hoppscotch_io, most popular open source project build in India. Today, they are profitable, support millions of users, scaling enterprise product ... and are still sitting on the majority of their seed $" Link
Liyas Thomas: "I couldn't be more thankful for reviews like this. Great things happen when the product really aligns with the people you're working for!" Link
Matti: "Crazy last 24h with @formbricks launch: 7k Formbricks.com visitors 8k views on Github reached 4k stars on Github Trending on Github #4 Product of the Day on ProductHunt Front-Page of hackernews First paying customers for new Cloud pricing" Link
Open Source Startup Podcast: "Check out the latest Open Source Startup Podcast all about open source security with @ToniBlyx of Prowler to learn: How Prowler became the top OSS AWS security tool How they expanded from AWS to multiple cos The patience required for open source podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ossst..." Link
JJ --- e/acc: "The cost to train a super powerful AI model today is $100M to $1B. I hereby predict that these costs will drop by 500,000X to 1 million fold (similar to this chart)... but in perhaps one third the time (5-7 years)." Link
George Hotz: "The 2020s will be for AI what the 90s were for encryption. 40-bit key limits and Clipper chips. In the 2030s, you'll have a personal exaflop. GPT-4 in a watch. Superhuman household robots. Even WWIII won't stop this. Are you and your country on the right side of history?" Link
Yann LeCun: "An article about my vociferous support of open source AI platforms. Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei, and Sam Altman (among others) have scared governments about what they claim are risks of AI-fueled catastrophes. I know that Demis, at least, is sincere in his claims, but I think those claims are incorrect and counterproductive. The inevitable effect, intentional or not, if governments believe those claims would be a regulatory capture profiting their companies. I do think that the short-term societal dangers of proprietary AI systems that will soon mediate everyone's digital diet are considerably higher than any imagined catastrophe caused by the misuse of open source AI systems. And I believe that the benefits of open source AI platforms in terms of progress, safety, economic development, and cultural diversity are overwhelming. businessinsider.com/sam-altman-and..." Link
Sanskriti Harmukh: "I wrapped up my Developer Advocate Internship at Hoppscotch with the most happening conference @IndiaFOSS. From sharing about Hoppscotch at Experience Labs to geeking out with fellow Project Leaders, I enjoyed a lot. Thank you Team for having me, @hoppscotch_io has my heart" Link
JJ --- e/acc: ".@DocuSign extorts users to access their docs and is overstaffed by 7,000+ heads. .@Documenso is open source and understaffed by maybe a few dozen. You know what to do." Link
JJ --- e/acc: "Crossing 40,000 stars @appflowy github.com/AppFlowy-IO/Ap..." Link
AppFlowy: "Check out our latest blog: 'Demystifying AppFlowy Editor's Codebase.' Discover what goes on behind the scenes when using the Editor, explore folder structure, and learn strategies for adding new features to the AppFlowy Editor package. blog.appflowy.io/demystifying-a..." Link
Neil Chudleigh: "been using @calcom for scheduling and video calls. pretty awesome product- miles better than zoom / calendly, and 1000x easier to set up. incredible that it's open source.." Link
Spacedrive: "Drag and drop is nearly ready." Link
JJ --- e/acc: "Please buy a to attend OCS iii in SF on Dec.6-7th. We run the event at a big loss --- join us in person to learn from founders of @automattic @RedHat @github @gitlab @openbb_finance @calcom @planepowers + more on how to scale legendary COSS startups! opencoresummit.com" Link
martin_casado: "1/ We've submitted a letter to President Biden regarding the AI Executive Order and its potential for restricting open source AI. We believe strongly that open source is the only way to keep software safe and free from monopoly. Please help amplify." Link
Tim Miller - t4stack.com: "Imagine shipping svelte or vue when @milliondotjs exists" Link
tobi lutke: "I signed this letter in order to highlight the crucial role that open source AI models play in the process of innovation and safety." Link
JJ --- e/acc: "The future of rendering in @GodotEngine has arrived. Great live updates from @GodotCon today in Munich. w4games.com/2023/11/04/loo..." Link
Brian Armstrong: "Great talk by @joycesticks about @ResearchHub youtu.be/5ysl02t6l30?si... Go sign up today: researchhub.com" Link
JJ --- e/acc: "Moments away from crossing 70,000 stars for @TauriApps and 50,000 stars for @rustdesk --- TWO of the top 5 @rustlang projects in the world. We are greatly honored to be partners with both @OSSCapital." Link
Yann LeCun: "AI regulatory capture recipe." Link
Roelof Botha: "The future of #AI governance is here. Join a global community of policymakers, engineers, activists, and more in ensuring that AI remains open and accessible to all. open.mozilla.org/letter/ via @mozilla" Link
JJ --- e/acc: "Let it be known: Enterprise browsers ala @TalonCyber / @island_io should be open core ... @OSSCapital is ready and excited to fund in this area at the earliest stages (formation / incorporation)." Link
Travis Oliphant: "Generative AI is made possible by a mountain of Open Source! Let's not forget that. Open source tools and communities are the backbone of this technology. Let's harness the power of open source generative AI together! Reach out to us and unlock its potential for your business." Link
💸 COSS Liquidity (M&A + IPOs)
- Jamin Ball: "Confluent quarter: - $200M rev (+32% YoY) vs $195M consensus (3% beat) - $205M next Q guidance vs $212M consensus (4% miss) - $189M subs rev (+36% YoY) - $92m Confluent Cloud rev (+61% YoY) - ~130% DBNR - 42 months GM adj. CAC payback - 72% GM - (7%) FCF Margin $CFLT" Link
🛠️ COSS Jobs
- 3,811 jobs and 296 companies hiring! Link
📊 $COSS - Public Markets
- $COSS markets up 5.31%last week
- Latest $COSS markets snapshot below as of market close last Friday courtesy of Koyfin.
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